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Forum Index : Solar : Feed-in tariff for 2021-2022 in Victoria
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poida Guru  Joined: 02/02/2017 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1387 |
https://www.esc.vic.gov.au/electricity-and-gas/electricity-and-gas-tariffs-and-benchmarks/minimum-feed-tariff And it's going to be 6.7 cents / kW.hr next year. This year it's 10.2 cents, again for fixed rate customers. according to https://www.canstarblue.com.au/solar-power/solar-feed-in-tariffs-vic/ nearly all retailers offer this minimum or a little more as the only FIT available. I am wondering if a battery + charger + home built inverter system combined with a reasonable time of use tariff would make better sense here in Melbourne. For a start, I like the idea of hurting the retail/wholesale cartel by using most energy in off-peak times. pros: - hurt the cartel by using them just as they use us - no solar! No problems with 10 days straight rain in Melbourne! - uses cheap and reliable home built inverter - uses cheap and reliable used forklift battery. - use 1 or 2 Eltek 2kW chargers as the charge system. 0.99 power factor & 96% efficient - a good backup supply when street power goes for a day or two - the generator will be good for longer outages - run genny to charge the battery so as to give everyone 2 days off from genny noise. cons: - likely to be outlawed with appreciable fines - round trip efficiency of system needs careful characterisation before commit - probably more to come.. Let's do a few sums. $70 for an Eltek charger. Buy two. $200 for a 3kW home built inverter, some here build them for less $4K for 700Ahr 50V used FL battery. 2000 cycles at 50% DOD or something. 350A x 50V = 17.5kW.hr at 50% inverter is 90% efficient, probably a bit better than that. charge efficiency to be 80%. I wonder what it actually is, going from about 45% capacity to 95% capacity. 0.8 x 0.96 x 0.9 = 0.69 for the round trip But if the battery is nearly charged, little is going into it and so the loss is just inverter and charger losses combined or 0.9 x 0.96 or 0.86 Maybe just bypass the system, with house connected straight to mains so it's now 1.00 Time of use has off peak at 11pm to 7am or 8 hours. This limits charge time to this 8 hours and so maybe charge at 4kW using 2 chargers. Rates: from here peak - 54 cents kw.hr off peak - 15 cents I estimate fixed rates to be 27 to 30 cents kW.hr Return on investment: $140 + $200 + $4000 up front = $4,320 15 kW.hr household energy use per day, average over year. which is 5,475 kw.Hr per year scenario #1 - all power from battery and all charging from off-peak energy cost is offpeak divided by round trip efficiency so that's 15 cents / 0.69 = 22 cents kW.hr A fixed rate of 30 cents means 8 cents kW.hr saved or $438 per year. So it's a 10 year break even point. But the battery won't last that long. scenario #2 - 5 days use off peak, 2 days use peak power energy cost is 5/7 * (15 /0.69) + 2/7 * (54 /0.69) or 38 cents kW.hr Better to just go fixed rate and spend the $4K on hookers & blow scenario #3 - 5 days use off peak and 2 days connect straight to grid Energy cost is 5/7 * (15 /0.69) + 2/7 * 54 or 31 cents kW.hr Maybe do it anyway, for a battery backup when street power fails. scenario #4 - flat rate. Do nothing. pay (30 cents x 5475) or $1,642 to The Man. Sorry to fill this forum with rubbish but I'm bored out of my brain. I think the best way to go is to have some solar and add in off-peak heavy power use and occasional off-peak battery charging. And arrange ones affairs to avoid using peak power at all. Get a gas oven and cook-top Train the wife to do the ironing, dish washer/clothes washer/etc. at off peak times wronger than a phone book full of wrong phone numbers |
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| Godoh Guru Joined: 26/09/2020 Location: AustraliaPosts: 378 |
Yep Poida looks like you have cabin fever. Just wondering where are 2kw chargers available for $70. I would get one myself to save using the Powerjack I have as a charger. That doesn't happen much but with the tendency for Powerjack inverters to blow up, I am thinking a dedicated charger would be great, especially for $70. I am putting an 8010 based inverter together at the moment as a spare. They seem to use a lot less no load current than the powerjack and are a lot simpler looking if repairs are necessary. I bought a dead 24 volt 8kw Powerjack that had two transformers in it so I will have two spare inverters when I have finished , then the powerjack can be a spare. Have fun Pete |
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Haxby Guru Joined: 07/07/2008 Location: AustraliaPosts: 418 |
Dodo electricity offers 1 free hour of electricity per day. Between 6-7 am. It would be cool to install a DC 3 phase fast charger to charge a large battery for that hour! Ha ha! |
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| Haxby Guru Joined: 07/07/2008 Location: AustraliaPosts: 418 |
I also am suffering from a bit of cabin fever with this lockdown.  Joking aside, as I might have mentioned before, I'm a big proponent of an oversized array and using the power while the sun shines. In my case that is easy to do in summer autumn and spring, but hard to do in winter. Coupled with an energy efficient house, our electricity bills are pretty much zero except for winter. (Family of 4, all electric house, 10.8kw of panels) |
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| Solar Mike Guru Joined: 08/02/2015 Location: New ZealandPosts: 1122 |
Its even less here in NZ, thus also with no solar subsidies available, you are lucky to see any roofs with PV, perhaps 1 in 400 houses if that. Our energy provider has 1 hour free each day, during off peak times, at your choice when to use it. Now a 10Kw charger into the 100V Lifepo4 bank sounds like a good idea.... Mike |
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| Davo99 Guru Joined: 03/06/2019 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1577 |
On the lefty bedwetter forum, the "Gubbermint isn't doing enough" Brigade were arguing about this some months back that solar was not to make money from and saw nothing wrong with getting nothing for your feedback. Lot of Gubbermint paid and industry shills on there. I have spoken to several people in the power game about this. One of them is a Client whom is a Field manager for a power co and I sold 5Kw of used panels he added to his existing setup.... which is not quite Kosher here. :0) He said there is NO one in his company ( big 3 Sydney distributor) that checks on anything. He said the only thing they do is follow up on reports, complaints to be exact and even when people are blatantly stealing power, they Might upgrade the meters and get them to sign an agreement they won't try it again and that's it. He said the only ones he know of that have been fined is larger Businesses that are outright stealing. Another client just before the lockups said his long standing mate is a reader and says he has discovered people stealing, reported it and many times NOTHING at all was done. I'm trying to find someone or accounts of someone that has ever got in trouble to gauge what a fine may be but I cannot. My brother in law got solar put on over 18 months ago and didn't get the old meter changed which winds backwards now. I know he has received at least 3 CREDITS on his bill because the usage was less than before. I stuffed up in Feb and my meters were in credit when the reader came 4 days early. I got a letter and an email they had to come change the meters. I put them off, even a guy that showed up with amazing ease even though I was Chitting myself and the next read the meters were ahead as would normally be and I got a bill and that's been it. I asked a solicitor mate if I was to Hypothetically wind my meters back and got caught, what would the likely outcome be? He said it was not stealing so they couldn't get me on that, he said there was the possibility there would go for loss of revenue but he thought that unlikely because they couldn't say what I would have used and unless it was a very conservative estimate, of what I would have paid anyway, would be easy to challenge. He said the only thing he could see them doing would be to put a cease and desist order on me and he also found the likely hood of a fine and the resulting bad press not a path they would want to go down. He thought the big thing would be stealing but as that clearly wasn't the intention and I would in the hypothetical scenario be paying for the power I did use, not worth their trouble trying to chase, just prevent in the future. I'll be a LOT more careful now but my fear factor is pretty much less than zero. Only thing I am scared of is loosing my old spinny meters. Thinking I may have to get a legit system, ( oh the horror of that!) I did some research and spoke to my power company client. He's been getting a refund ever since he put on the extra panels and hasn't been questioned once. His suggestion was only have the max output you are supposed to, IE, 5/ 10KW, but If you have double the panels so the inverter is pushing out full power by 9 in the morning until 7 in the evening in summer, your good. He was of the opinion that even if you pushed down 15 on a 10 Kw approved system, they would see it but were very unlikely to question it. With over clocking I can make 50 Kwh a day on a 5 Kw inverter. Being On 3 phase here I can go 10 KW so 100KWh a day. 6 months of the year I'm uswing about 25 Kwh day and can make the 100 and Summer I could still have about 50 day excess. Winter would be my only concern BUT, if I got 50% FOIT as I paid for power, which I can get ATM, then the feedback would put me in profit. There is one other thing the smart people here could probably do which I would like but haven't found anything I can but to do it, have some Current sensing switch so you had more panels still to feed the loads so you were feeding back the 5/10Kw all the time. There are inverters that can do this now, export limiting and they would be great on a new install that was added to later. 15-20 KW of panels on a 5 kw inverter would mean while the sun was up a decent height, the panels would be feeding the house loads and pushing back to the full limit of the export. As long as things "Seem" ok to the computer doing the bill, there is no one going round looking how many panels are on the roof and cross checking that with approvals. Guy also said if there was any problem, plead ignorance and you were just trying to do the right thing, save FF emissions and look after the planet. He said the would not want to be seen in a story in the media about fining someone just trying to be green and save the planet. I believe with reasonable care, there is EVERY chance a forklift pack WILL last that long. I have only spoken to a couple of people with them, one couple that have been off grid for many years that are friends with my father and the guy wanders down every 2-3 Months to add a bit of water to the auto watering system and is more concerned about making sure that no pests have got in the shed and taken up residence. His current pack has been going 14 years and he says there is still little sign of degradation. He said a guy that did the install comes in once a year and goes though it and hasn't found any problems yet. They did until a few years ago run a working dairy and their house off the setup. He said the biggest problem with the generator was stale fuel from never using the thing. The DOD is warranted to 80% BTW. Guy I spoke to some time back said they were happy to sell the fork packs for solar. They don't get hit with hundreds of amps Draw, they don't get bumped and vibrated around, they don't get drained till the machine won't move any more and they don't get left discharged for long terms because someone forgot to turn the charger on and ran the thing for days without noticing. And here is where the straight out $$ equation goes down the priority list for me. There is No way in hell I'm either going to train the wife and daughter to do that now do I want to be stuffed with it myself. If I want to turn on the AC in the evening, I don't want to be chitting bricks that it's costing me $2 an hour to run. Stuff that. I rather know that the battery depreciation and other gear costs me $x a week or quarter and that's pretty much about it. Might be illogical but there is more value in peace of mind, contentment and satisfaction beyond just $$. And besides that, I have a maybe irrational hatred for the power industry which at this point makes 3 BILLION ( yes, look it up) PROFIT a year in Oz..... And then they pull stunts like wanting to reduce feed in and telling people the grid is over loaded with solar input while the same time they are doing PR on the latest 100K panel solar farm they just built because they are such wonderful people saving the world and all the other BS which drives me insane. I enjoy self sufficiency and by the time I can't do things for myself, I'll be in the retirement home or dead anyway so not to worry. I was working on my 10 Kw Generator today. Swapped the Non electric start 9.5 Hp engine over for a 12 WITH electric. I am working toward self sufficiency with having a load of panels and stand by generatorS both for battery and direct generation. I am Concerned ( totally convinced) based on industry and gubbermint reports I have read ( and you guys think YOU are bored) that the power industry is headed for a Collapse. The push for all the unreliables without sufficient storage and RELIABLE generation, I am of the belief is going to cause a LOT of power shortages. Mate in LA has them every day for the self same reason so I see it far from an impossibility here. When you get past the media hype and what the public is told and look into the industry's own info, it's not a promising outlook. I give it 3-5 years and things will start to become problematic. I'm not ready/ it's not worth while for me to have batteries yet but I aim to have everything else in place for when it is. My biggest power draw and concern is heating and Running the diesel heater this year, even with failures, has shown me what taking that load off will do. Putting in a combustion heater capable of doing the whole house would make running on solar even through winter Very doable with only occasional generator runs.... which I'll be burning free fuel for. As far as Lockups, PFFFT! I realised what an Idiot I have been worrying about them this week. Everyone is getting out and about in the fresh air under the guise of " Exercise". Model friend sent me a Vid she took this afternoon while she was out at Bondi beach "exercising" in her bikini lying motionless on a towel on the sand of all the people out doing the same thing and walking around. Most had facemuzzles, Many didn't and they were out having a walk, coffees, ice cream etc Fush and Chups etc. I had to go to the dentist Thursday and drove through the town and it was busy as ever. Went to pick up a parcel the Knock and run postmongeral left a card for and the line was 14 people long. Spaced out of course down the foot path but still. Shoe shop was closed and others but the bar was still open doing take away Drinks and food and things were ticking along. Also saw there is a stack of panels at my suppliers. Might have to sneak down and have a look tomorrow and do some exercise loading them up if there is anything good. Already have loads of them up there, what's a pallet or 3 more? |
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| johnmc Senior Member  Joined: 21/01/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 282 |
Good Day All, Liked the Idea of using the utility to charge my batteries. Done the costing of charging my batteries with offpeak . But at the time, with the lead acid batteries are not that charge efficieny (70% to 80%), and the effect on the life of the battery, as the batteries new cost $10,000 Have 8Kw of solar cells and in the summer time, can produce upto 40kw of power, and their is very few day we we do not get less than 12kw. But we use a slow combustion stove during the winter, were the wood was free it now costs approx $1000 because I have got too old to get the wood. We have 3 phase for the workshop as I need 3 phase for my toys . From my latest electricity bill! Your electricity charges on this plan All prices are inclusive of GST and your discount Supply Charge Daily Supply Charge 141.81 c/Day Usage Charges Peak Usage 30.60 c/kWh Off-Peak Usage 14.52 c/kWh My bill usually works out to be about $2-3 dollars a day including delivery charges and of this $150 is for delivery charges or about $1000 dollars a year Been pi**ing rain here of on for the last week or so and there appears more yet to come. Like to know where the globe is warming because it is not here. cheers john johnmc |
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Revlac Guru Joined: 31/12/2016 Location: AustraliaPosts: 961 |
More pros's for off grid power. -Sinewave is usually good -Voltage output is far more stable than grid voltage (at this location) While on grid power the CFL's where blowing up all the time along with other appliances, switch the light on and it blew up and took out another at the same time. -Since being offgrid No lights have blown, no appliances have blown up, voltage is very stable and consistent. -Your lights and fridge freezer will still be running when your neighbours are not. -Your neighbours will drop in sometimes and ask how you got on with the power outage the other day....you ask, what power outage? Cons...I guess, -Really only for those of us that are willing to do the work them selves and should have an interest in such things. (This might change a bit) Cheers Aaron Off The Grid |
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| Davo99 Guru Joined: 03/06/2019 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1577 |
John used solar panels can be had very cheap now and would be a much more cost efficient way to charge batteries. It's a fine line to save money on power with batteries if that's what you want to do but if you are after reliability of supply or independence, that's another matter. I don't think it makes a lot of sense to charge batteries from the grid. As you say there is an efficiency loss straight up and even if you can make it work, you are probably going to be lucky to save a few cents when the all up costs are taken into account. With panels you would get the charging for free most of the time. Add enough panels and you could have your Batteries charged 99% of the time for nothing. Forlkift battery packs which I have seen for as little as $1200 I think are the way to go. Just found one on Fleabay Now: Batt Pack It's a bit over 17 Kwh rated and with an 80% DOD, that would give a max capacity of around 13Kwh. That's more useable power than a tesla power wall the save the world types soil themselves over. If you used less than that capacity each day, you would get very good life. Don't forget that with enough panels, which wouldn't be over the top, when the sun was out you could be charging the batteries if they weren't already and the panels would be providing the power so you could in fact be getting 20Kwh a day or more easily. For the most part your batteries should only be for night and bad weather use. There are also Inexpensive Hybrid type inverters that you can connect to the mains and the battery pack and will provide power from the batteries to offset drawing from the grid. I helped my fathers neighbour set one of these up about 2 years ago and seems to be working well. This is the Type: They are an all in one. Take power from the panels to charge the batteries, have an inverter and can also charge the batteries from the mains as well as offset grid power. Very versatile units and from the 2 People that I know have them, work well in the time they have had them. They come in various sizes and can be configured for different voltages as well in the one unit. Dads neighbours is a 48 or 24V type and does 4 Kw output. My father is feeling the same thing with me not being up there to cut it for him. Said Neighbour has been cutting and brining it in so I guess those panels he ordered off me are going to be a thank you gift. Better give him double. My mate that has a tree lopping business and sells firewood says its the most expensive heating of all and if he didn't have it at his disposal, he wouldn't be able to afford it either. Not quite true as the guy is worth at least $11M but he's as down to earth as anyone could be. Ac is the cheapest heating and if you can get at least some of your power from solar, better still. Of course making power in winter with solar is the trick. My neighbour bought 2 Cube of firewood this week for $110 C/m. I wouldn't like to be doing it for that. I have ALL the toys at my disposal at Dad's with tractors and machinery and a 50 ton splitter and it's still damn hard work. You are country like my Dad. He's mid north coast. I have looked around and there is no one cheaper up there. The Supply charges are over the top. I put a fair size solar system on his shed roof and could go bigger but in winter with the trees around he's lucky to make 8 kwh a day. Summer of course he makes far more than he can use. I'm thinking to put another array up which can be switched on for winter and turned off for summer. You could add to your solar and bootleg it. Guessing you have a 6-6.5 KWH inverter? By just adding more panels into the system and over clocking it, your total KWH per day will go up but your peak output will stay the same. Instead for instance of your inverter not reaching full power, if it ever does, at say 11 am, it could well be hitting max output at 9am. That there could give you another 10KWH a day easy and then you make up on the back end as well. I was still making 8 Kw at 7 Pm last summer. From what I have read they say Max inverter efficiency occurs when it is 150-200% overclocked with panels. I would wholeheartedly agree with that based on my own experience and setup. some of mine was about 250% over clocked but that was not most efficient because there was a LOT of clipping for a lot of the day. I added another inverter which picked up over all but if you stay in the 150-200% range you would make a LOT more KWH. My 5 Kw inverter I do most of my testing with can make 50 KWH a day. The trick is get the things up to full speed early as possible and keep them there late as possible. Also gives you a LOT more power when you need it most, in bad weather. You can't be too far from my Father. He said he has been getting 10-20mm of rain every 3 days or less for over a month now. Had downpours last week. Said everywhere you look there is water lying on the ground. Took the tractor down the back which has always been hard ground to do some slashing and said he came so close to bogging the thing it wasn't Funny. The ground is like quicksand up there. Last October it was a complete and utter dust bowl. The rocks I was trying to rake out the paddock are now all on top of the ground but you can't get to them for the meter high grass. That's going to be fun trying to slash that. Haha! Love it. Have you seen the images from thredbo and the ski Fields? Had over 45 Cm last Night alone. I saw a picture of a " Snow Bus" which is literally up to the windscreen in snow and looks like it has about 2Ft sitting on top of it. I have been getting all these Tourist advertisements ( Dunno why, I hate snow and Cold and first and only time I went to the snow was when I was 12 and have had no inclination to go back!) which I think are Ironic given half the country is locked down. Long way for Qld, NT and WA to go to freeze their arses off for a $12 meat pie and a $7 can of coke. |
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| Davo99 Guru Joined: 03/06/2019 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1577 |
Friend of mine has set up a system for this reason up the coast. He's using one of the inverters I linked to above which has a UPS feature as well. He bought some Commercial 190AH batteries usually used and probably came from a UPS for a Data Center. He gets blackouts every 2-3 weeks ranging from minutes to 6 hours and the setup was designed to make his power consistent. Day he turned it on he wondered what it was doing and then realised it was doing what it should as the power had dropped out and he was running on that not even an hour after kicking the thing in. He is Charging from a dedicated solar array and has it sent so when the batteries are charged, his pool pump will run from the solar direct more or less without hitting the charge on the batteries which are still at float. Saves him some power charges there. The thing still has extra capacity and he was going to hook something else into it but I forget what now. Do you find there is much day to day work with your system once it was set up? |
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| Revlac Guru Joined: 31/12/2016 Location: AustraliaPosts: 961 |
Yes I'm aware of those inverters, I started out with a few of them to get off grid in a hurry (quick and easy to setup), didn't get the hybrid, just the basic 4048HS and 5048HS with pwm charger, Didn't connect them on the grid up here because the grid would destroy them. I lost the first one to a direct lightning strike. (used it for spare parts) One popped due to an arcing isolator switch, They are (mostly) not that hard to repair, just mosfets drivers IGBT's diodes, a thorough check and go again, been giving it a thrashing running power tools in the shed for the 4 years since the repair (bought some HY4008p To-220 to put in them but haven't need them yet) The others been running the house for 4 years (after the first one) and wore out the cooling fans so need to replace them. they have been a learning experience. I'm all for the build your own, more satisfying Not that much maintenance, but I always check battery voltage to know where I should be with my consumption, A friend wanted to use a heap of 18650 lithiums like I did, I said no its no for you?.. because FFS there's no way in hell you would look after it...or any other battery or system. Just run everything until its flat and stuffed, I get an ear full about it, then I feel like unleashing some harsh words. Thats why I think its not for everyone, some just don't what to know about it or learn...not interested or something. Cheers Aaron Off The Grid |
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| poida Guru Joined: 02/02/2017 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1387 |
Thanks for helping with the conversation you all there. A FL battery looks more and more the way to go, plus 2x panels. I made a test today, to see the power loss from Eltek power supply, through the inverter to load. The load is 401 Watts with a power factor of 1.0 (4 tungsten globes) at 240V AC using Mike's Power-Mate Lite to measure AC power I see: Eltek ON but with no load = 13.9W (108VA, pf 0.133) Eltek ON and inverter on standby = 16W Inverter ON now becomes 31W, and this is with no load on the inverter Finally with the 401W load, the system draws 464W (520VA and pf is 0.77) So the efficiency for the Eltek PS and inverter at 400W output is 400 / 464 or 0.86 or 86% I estimated 0.96 x 0.9 or 0.86 or 86% in the opening comment of this thread. How can it be to estimate this (a la pulling figures out of arse) as closely as reality? The Power-Mate Lite is very accurate, 1% error or so. Anyway, this is a data point for the gear I have on the workbench. wronger than a phone book full of wrong phone numbers |
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| Godoh Guru Joined: 26/09/2020 Location: AustraliaPosts: 378 |
Hi Poida, you mentioned getting Eltek chargers for $70 , just wondering where you can buy a 2kw charger for that amount. Pete |
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| Davo99 Guru Joined: 03/06/2019 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1577 |
Yeah well that's all well and good for you smart people, I'd be all for it too if I wasn't stupid and had a hope in hell of building my own! :0) Now if it was about the Liberation of magic smoke, I bet I'd have you all beat hands down and score bonus Points for sparks and Flame. And that would be when I was trying to make it work and that NOT happen. :0( It seems though those inverter/ chargers are reasonably reliable for the Dummies like me. 4 years for the price does not seem a bad deal. From what I have read numerous times, many of the name brands that are far more expensive are not exactly bullet proof either. I looked at that too. There was a thing for using the salvaged ones that seemed to be all the rage for a while. The thing that got me was how reliable they may be? Yes, they are tested and graded before the packs are put together and the bad cells weeded out but what was to stop other cells going bad 3 or 6 Months after the thing was put together? Yeah, they will still work with dropped cells, long as they don't get too bad but then after a while, I did see these fears realised with people showing vids of packs with thermal imaging showing hot cells. I probably still would have had a crack at it but finding the cells proved to be something that more time and relationship building would be needed than I was prepared to invest. Then of course the woohoo floo came along and that was that. I think now the 18650 concept has largely been replaced in the DIY interest group by the cheap LIPO's from China that seem to have become all the rage. Many neither understand nor want to understand. My fathers neighbour was the same. I tried repeatedly to tell him that the battery's he wanted to use would be insufficient but to him, they were batteries so all good. Also tried to tell him that with the trees surrounding his house with not even 30Ft clearance around, he'd be lucky to get enough power to boil a kettle in winter. He knew enough just to think he knew it all but of course practice filled in the blanks. He blames the battery's for being no good but I well know the real reason the project was not a success. He was wondering why it was not working early on having run the batteries down below the level the inverter would accept. I told him the voltages to program the thing and where they should be but then of course the thing cut out much faster so he wasn't happy with that. When I got it through to him the battery capacity was insufficient and he had an idea why, in the blink of an eye he rushed out and bought more unsuitable batteries. Never fails to amaze me the money people will spend in order to save money without crunching the numbers to see that they will never get it back and it will just cost them more in the short, mid or long run. Least he didn't drop $15K on a power wall or other commercial battery. The neighbour only wanted to know it was going to work and supposedly save him money. He never bothered looking at the important parts, the drawbacks and potential problems. I told him how to do it but was not to his liking so he went ahead with his idea, despite me telling him where he was going wrong with that even mid process. In the end he came back to me and bought what he should have in the first place. My Father spoke to him some weeks later and he told him it was working fine, should have done what I said in the first place. He seem to learn just enough to be dangerous as the saying goes, both with this and other things. He set his system up but before turning it on, thankfully he waited for me to go up and inspect it for him. He had wired this 4KW unit back into the power point with this old bakelite plug that had to be older than he and I put together by a long shot and had maybe 1mm wire in it. When I told him he could not use that and did my best to scare the crap out of him and make it clear it was an absolute, you WILL Cause a fire with this and told him to hardwire it and the cable he needed, He got the cable and wired it with the same plug in the outlet! Could not believe it! Wouldn't even spend the $3.25 at Bunnys for a new plug that would have been right where he was and he was too cheap to buy one, let along the junction box and breakers to do it properly. I had most of what was needed so got the rest when I went back in town and went in and did it properly for him. He looks after my Dad and keeps an eye on him for me so all good. Dad said he has done some other elaborate setup outside the shed now and has panels and Boxes and wiring everywhere so I'm sure that will be something to see. Not a bad bloke at all, just interested in what he wants to hear, not what he needs to know. |
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| poida Guru Joined: 02/02/2017 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1387 |
It was possible to get them from ebay, I think last year. I got my 2 from Wiseguy and I think he got them from the ebay seller but not sure. But the $70 is not a fact, I have no idea what they are/were costing. RenewableMark will know, he has a functioning memory (not like me) I just used the $70 as a start point for some rough estimations. wronger than a phone book full of wrong phone numbers |
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| Revlac Guru Joined: 31/12/2016 Location: AustraliaPosts: 961 |
Yes that's about it, not so many cells available now, these I got for free as they where old rubbish, I never did match up cells or do capacity checks, they have done well for me over the years and very reliable very little load on them compared to a computer or cordless thing. So far have only discarded 5 cells out of the whole lot since running, could be others in there doing nothing, never any temperature above ambient for the whole pack just those 5 cells that had a little temp develop. Most are going for the larger cells these days, I have done my time with FLA. A friend still has the hi FIT with his system, however due to the hail storm that took out solar panels and damaged roofing from the local town all the way out to the coast (still many in the process of repair), told him he could just get a few cheap panels of the same size and replace the broken ones, but its all too hard or something. The FIT for QLD has been extended, I don't follow this stuff but I think it might be different for each state. feed-in-tariff-for-regional-queensland Now I look at it... the feed-in tariff at 6.583 cents per kilowatt hour (c/kWh). Cheers Aaron Off The Grid |
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